Saturday, August 7, 2010

In accordance with newly enacted legislation, the gun owner will permanently forfeit his right to own guns, spend 10 days in jail and report to a probation officer for 10 years, submitting to regular and random home inspections, to ensure compliance. The new law signed by the governor earlier this week is called the "one strike you're out gun law." Supporters are optimistic that this year alone thousands of lives and millions of dollars will be saved.

...for their nefarious, prayerful purposes — daring to practice their religion inside the building where 184 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. They haven’t even had the sensitivity to move two blocks, let alone a mile, away from that sacred site.

Finally, Quillen says the Second Amendment isn't archaic or outdated, especially since it was "one of the nation's first laws." Some of the other first laws, which I guess in Quillen's opinion should still be viable based on that reasoning, are not allowing women to vote and condoning slavery.

Too many people die or are injured by guns in this country. The gun issue is complex and deserves reasonable debate. The Second Amendment is outdated and only valid to those financially or emotionally invested in the sale or ownership of guns and should no longer be used in an honest discussion on this important subject.

---Again, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE, guns don't go off by themselves. You MUST pull what's known as a TRIGGER.

---This argument is pushing me over the edge. I am about to stop shooting paper and go for a two year old.

---Bats and knives and hammers and arrows are a technology that allow people to kill people also, so what's your point?

---Typical progressive tripe, the author knew it and therefor hid their identity.

Why is it so often that an intelligent, well drafted essay about gun control, utilizing facts combined with common sense, is met with responses like this? One sympathetic commenter said it best.

As the total number of gun owners increases, the number of idiots who own guns will proportionally increase. That is simply one of the tradeoffs that will occur if our society chooses to be more gun-friendly.

The pro-gun people should simply acknowledge this fact and state that the trade-off is worth it. It's really pathetic and disingenuous how the pro-gun crowd tries to candy-coat this reality.

A woman taken into custody after Tuesday's shooting in a room at the city-owned Hilton Convention Center hotel was charged with attempted first-degree murder after she would not explain to detectives how a struggle over a handgun resulted in her boyfriend being shot.

Police identified the suspect as Sharolyn L. Yarbrough, 34. Police said the .40-caliber handgun, which has a pink grip, is registered in her name.

According to court records, the incident — the most recent in a series of fights between the couple — was sparked over a cell phone. According to charging documents, the shooting occurred as the pair struggled over the pistol.

I knew I'd seen a pink gun before, but I realize Breda doesn't live in Baltimore. And besides, that boyfriend would be D-E-A-D, dead. You know what kinda shot Breda is.

What's your opinion? What do they mean when they say the gun is "registered in her name?" (the shooter in Baltimore, not Breda) I didn't know they had gun registration in Baltimore.

As the Brady Center points out in its new report, Leadership Vacuum, the ATF vacancy is particularly conspicuous, since 83% of the appointments that require Senate approval have been confirmed or nominated since President Obama took office. The Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Administration has been nominated and confirmed, but no one has even been nominated for the job of running the agency responsible for fighting gun trafficking.

This is a serious matter. In the words of James Pasco, a former ATF Assistant Director, "I am absolutely confident that because of the lack of a confirmed director, crimes are being committed and innocent people are dying." How can the Administration continue to maintain it has a policy to fight gun violence by improving enforcement of current law, when it has been willing to allow the federal gun enforcement agency to remain leaderless? How can it say that it is "doing all that we can" -- as Secretary of State Clinton claimed -- to curb the arming of Mexican cartels with guns trafficked from American gun shops?

This certainly doesn't sound like something that can be blamed on the fact that Obama has a lot on his plate, what with the wars and Health Care and all. This sounds like a purposeful omission, ensuring the wishes of the NRA are achieved. Could their lobbying and influence be that strong?

Friday, August 6, 2010

Our NRA dupes, er...friends are always keen on telling us of the truly irresistable, overwhelming, shock-and-awe political power of the NRA. After all, they have eleventy bazillion members who march in perfect lockstep to the dictates of the NRA and its leadership.

So, when the NRA most vehemently opposed the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court...well, she might as well have just crawled back into the Saddam Hussein-like liberal hidey hole from whence she came. After all, did she not learn from the lesson the NRA taught Barack Obama when they spent over $40M to defeat his Presidental aspirations in 2008?

A judge has ruled that a Shawano gun dealer should lose its license for repeatedly failing to keep accurate records and for making suspected straw gun sales, supporting the action a federal agency took nearly three years ago.

Despite the ruling from U.S. District Judge William Griesbach in Green Bay this week, Shawano Gun and Loan continues to sell guns - and might be able to do so for months or even years depending on a possible appeal.

Griesbach issued an order that supported the revocation issued by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in October 2007.

The ATF took the rare step of revoking the Shawano store's license after repeatedly warning the owner about missing records and other violations.

The agency moved to revoke 64 licenses in fiscal year 2009 stemming from more than 11,000 inspections - the most recent figures available.

Now there's a small precentage for you. The first thing that comes to my mind is that crooked gun dealers can so easily conceal their criminal activity that the number of requested revocations was only 64. The second thing that comes to mind is that those 64 must really be bad. You'd think everybody would rejoice when those guys were put out of business, but I'm afraid it doesn't work like that.

Revoking a license can take years because of a law that allows a so-called "de novo review" by a federal judge - a fresh look at the matter that may result in a trial. In the Shawano case, Griesbach did not hold such a trial, yet the case still took 18 months to conclude as each side submitted hundreds of pages of documents.

When, after years of accumulating violations and evidence, the ATF finally succeeds in closing down this criminal enterprise, they'll just do what Badger Outdoors did.

That would be similar to a case in 2006, when ATF investigators recommended revoking the license of Badger Outdoors in West Milwaukee.

There was no revocation and the store remains open, operating as Badger Guns. Federal records show the license recommended for revocation was relinquished voluntarily, the players inside the operation took on new roles and a new license was issued to the son of a previous owner, creating what one federal official called a "clean slate," a Journal Sentinel investigation found earlier this year.

To me, one of the strongest indictments against gun owners in general is their, not only turning a blind eye to this nonsense, but actually supporting it by protecting criminal gun dealers. It not only taints them all with guilt, it undermines their attempts to be accepted as responsible citizens exercising their rights.

Experts who study that question wish they could give an easy answer, that something as simple as pouring money into police overtime would stem the sort of carnage that ripped through a birthday barbecue early Tuesday, left a 3-year-old girl dead last week and injured 10 people after an Indiana Black Expo event last month.

But those experts say nobody can pinpoint a dependable formula to stamp out gun violence, despite decades of relentless efforts by police and communities in Indianapolis and other cities.

New York, Boston and other places have seen hopeful signs of progress, but few initiatives have been documented closely enough to provide a road map for other cities.

In this rather lengthy article the one thing that was not mentioned is getting rid of some of the guns, or getting rid of most of the guns. Wouldn't that cut down on the gun crime?

In examining the problem in Indiana, shouldn't the lax gun laws and pro-gun attitudes be mentioned? Don't they contribute towards a continual gun flow into the criminal world?

Why is that so difficult for people to admit? Perhaps by admitting such obvious facts, it's that much more difficult to shirk responsibility. Indiana gun owners and the shapers of Indiana gun policy need to stand up and take responsibility for the mess they've got on their hands.

OLEAN—An Allegany man was charged Wednesday with a murder that occurred Tuesday.

Martez T. Johnson, 33, of North Fourth Street, is accused of killing James A. Williams, 27, in Williams’ apartment on South Second Street.

Police said that Johnson shot Williams twice with a long gun. State police divers recovered what is believed to be the murder weapon at about 2 p. m. Wednesday from the Allegany River at Allegany.

Johnson has served two prison terms, dating back to 2004, for criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a controlled substance, both convictions in Erie County.

So, the guy was an ex-con who had no trouble getting a gun. Do you think he would have gotten it from another criminal, or would he just as easily have been able to buy it from a lawful gun owner in a private sale? In this case we're talking about a long gun anyway, so it's probably even easier. What do you think?

Should the previous owners of the guns illegally owned by Mr. Johnson bear some of the weight of his crimes? Isn't that why they have laws against knowingly selling guns to a felon?

When reviewing the video, (here's the Youtube video - go to the last few seconds) it would be interesting to learn what readers over on MikeB302000 would have to say about a plain clothed individual pulling a gun on someone and declaring that they were a cop. As the motorcyclist said in an interview with a local news station reporting on the story, he was more afraid that the plain clothes cop could have been trying to car jack his motorcycle.

Both of these stories are disturbing and are warning signs down the road of America’s ever escalating decline.

I'm not sure if this incident represents a shift in the balance of power between individuals and the government or whether it represents "America's ever escalatinig decline." I'll trust Il Principe on that. What do you think?

What I know is, pro-gun folks think the best way to prevent this shift is to arm more citizens. That I don't agree with. In fact this video might be a good argument why that's a bad idea.

Imagine if the motorcycle rider had been one of those guys who're always armed, always on the ready, let's say he was Weer'd Beard or Mike W., for example. What do you think would have happened?

Let me take a stab at it: the plainclothes cop would be dead and all you guys would be defending the shooter. Am I right?

Judge Walker's ruling overturning Prop 8 is an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution and for the majority of people of the United States who believe marriage is the union of husband and wife. In every state of the union from California to Maine to Georgia, where the people have had a chance to vote they've affirmed that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Congress now has the responsibility to act immediately to reaffirm marriage as a union of one man and one woman as our national policy.

What's wrong with conservatives? How can they keep saying things like this?

Think Progress draws upon the founding fathers just like the pro-gun crowd.

The debate over the Ground Zero Mosque is, in fact, a debate over American values. Newt Gingrich has been trying to claim that the construction of the mosque is “explicitly at odds with core American and Western values,” while Mayor Bloomberg correctly noted yesterday that “we would betray our values if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.” If the conservatives who have been attacking the mosque think that George Washington was wrong about American tolerance and religious freedom, let them say so explicitly.

It's funny that the same guys who cite the founders to support gun rights are largely against the mosque. Yet, it's the biggest "father" of them all who proves them wrong.

Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, had said that he would explore the possibility of pardoning Billy the Kid, one of America's most famous outlaws, who was gunned down by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garret on July 14, 1881.

It turns out there are lots of questions about what actually happened 130 years ago in the wild wild west. But the thing I find fascinating is the fact that descendents of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett are passionate about this, not to mention the fact that Governor Richardson is even considering it. Doesn't he have more important things to do, you know 21st centure things?

It reminds me of the pro-gun folks who keep referring back to the "founding fathers" as the justification for their opinions.

What happened 130 years ago in the South West and what happened 240 years ago on the East Coast has very little do to with us today.

As a first step toward getting a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Virginia, I recently completed a state-approved firearms safety class. Might as well get my Roscoe and shoulder holster ready because I nailed that test.

Two main points:

1. The required training is practically worthless, and2. The chances of needing a gun to save your life are very small.

Gov. Pat Quinn got the endorsement of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a national group that happens to share the name of Quinn's Republican challenger but has very different views when it comes to gun control.

I liked very much what the governor said about his Republican challenger, who "voted against a measure that would make so-called "straw purchases" a crime."

"We have in our state a need for a governor with fortitude, not someone who is going to be patting on the back those who have straw purchases at gun shows, patting on the back those who would sell assault weapons to the wrong people," Quinn said. "We've got to say no to that and we've got to say yes to life."

What's your opinion? What kind of man, regardless of his love of guns or lack thereof, would vote against making straw purchases a crime? I don't understand that?

MANCHESTER, Conn. – A driver caught stealing beer from the warehouse where he worked agreed to resign on Tuesday and then as "cold as ice," one of his victims said, went on a shooting rampage, killing eight people and injuring two before committing suicide.

Omar Thornton pulled out a handgun after a meeting in which he was shown video evidence of the thefts and was offered the chance to quit or be fired.

"Then he went out on this rampage," company vice president Steve Hollander told The Associated Press. "He was cool and calm. He didn't yell. He was cold as ice. He didn't protest when we were meeting with him to show him the video of him stealing. He didn't contest it. He didn't complain. He didn't argue. He didn't admit or deny anything. He just agreed to resign. And then he just unexplainably pulled out his gun and started blasting."

The story goes on to say that he may have been racially harassed and getting caught stealing was the last straw. But, the part I was interested in was this.

Joanne Hannah [mother of his girlfriend] described Thornton as an easygoing guy who liked to play sports and video games. She said he had a pistol permit and planned to teach her daughter how to use a gun.

Thornton listed Hoffman's Gun Center & Indoor Range in Newington as one of his interests on his Facebook page.

I'm not sure what that means in Connecticut, to have a "pistol permit," but it seems he was a lawful gun owner up until this incident, can we agree on that? Yet, he was stealing beer from the warehouse. Is it safe to assume that was not his only infraction? That speculation aside, when he was caught for the beer, he pulled out his guns and started killing people.

In retrospect, he's a good representative of the old 10%ers I like to talk about.

What's your opinion? Do you think he might have been the object of excessive racist attacks and the stealing-beer charge was exaggerated as part of it? Do you think the white guys in the company might have pushed him over the edge, that it was their fault as much as his?

No, I'm afraid that would be too much shared responsibility even for me. I think the pro-gun crowd are just going to have to swallow this one as yet another example of one of their own going sour.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

After her 8-year-old son was shot to death, Lakeisha Gadson told police that three armed men wearing hooded sweatshirts had burst into her apartment and fired three rounds, hitting her little boy, Liquarry.

The next day, Gadson admitted she had lied about the intruders. This time, she told police that Liquarry's 7-year-old cousin had accidentally shot him.

I'm all for blaming the parents, but not when the gun belonged to the 15-year-old brother of the victim, an older brother who is already doing time for the crime. And, I certainly don't like the racial overtones of the case. This is a single mom in the black ghetto. What about all those white folks whose toddlers are killing themselves by accident? A day doesn't go by that you don't see one of them in the news, and more often than not the parents are not mentioned.

Lolita Lebron, a Puerto Rican nationalist known to some as a terrorist and to others as a near-mythic freedom fighter for her violent attack on the U.S. Capitol more than a half-century ago, died Aug. 1 at a hospital in San Juan of complications from respiratory disease. She was 90.

Ms. Lebron was called both fanatical and fearless for her efforts to draw attention to the cause of independence for her home island, claimed by the United States as spoils after the Spanish-American War and made an American commonwealth in 1952.

LeBron bought a ticket from New York to Washington on March 1, 1954. She and three fellow nationalists lunched at Union Station and then walked to the Capitol. They made their way to the House gallery. A security guard asked whether they were carrying cameras; they were not.

But they did have pistols. And in a crusade for Puerto Rico's independence that Ms. Lebron saw as no different from the uprising by America's 13 colonies against England in the 18th century, the four nationalists opened fire in the House chambers as more than 240 members of Congress debated an immigration bill.

"No different from the uprising of America's 13 colonies against England," who does that remind you of?

In controversial decisions by the narrowest of margins, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment is about self-defense and guarantees the right of citizens to possess a gun in the home. The court never mentioned handgun suicides, domestic shootings, children getting hold of guns, guns getting stolen from the home, or gang members taking family guns for a drive-by shooting. It overlooked that these laws were passed by legislative bodies after much debate and then were upheld by many court reviews over a period of 30 years. In the case of Oak Park, the ban also was ratified in a referendum.

Now that's what I call a good summary. And here's what I call a happy ending.

In the years ahead, the courts will be inundated with cases about the Second Amendment pushed by both sides. Sooner or later there will be another Virginia Tech shooting, another Northern Illinois incident, or another political assassination.

At some point America has another tradition -- after trying to work under sometimes onerous Constitutional limits and court decisions, finally opting to amend the Constitution and to change the court personnel.

Did you get that, "amend the Constitution" and "change the court personnel," not in that order, I would suppose.

What's your opinion? Is the mention above that this decision was by the "narrowest of margins," something the pro-gun folks like to overlook? Is the future possibility of amending the Constitution a realistic one?

TERRELL, Texas — A rural East Texas man has been reunited with his long-lost gun more than two decades after it was stolen. According to a Kaufman County Sheriff's Office statement, burglars took Bruce Garner's H&R nine-shot revolver from the Terrell man's home soon after he moved there in June 1989.

Although the thieves were never caught, deputies located the stolen firearm at a pawn shop. Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Pat Laney said Garner and his gun were reunited at an upbeat property hearing Thursday morning.

The 59-year-old leathersmith says "it's a hoot" to have his favorite dispatch gun back again. "I was astounded."

Garner said he never forgot about the gun he used back when he hunted and trapped to raise extra money.

Although I find it a bit sick to perpetuate the bizarre elevation of firearms to the level of the beloved, I guess that's what you have to expect in places like The Lone Star State. The gun is nearly sacred there.

My question, though, is, what is a "dispatch gun?" Is that what it sounds like? When you wound an animal with a long-distance shot from a rifle, you walk up to it with the trusty revolver to finish it off? Is that what a "dispatch gun" is? I'm just aguessin'.

What's your opinion? Let's use the car comparison for a moment, don't you think it's weird when someone is overly attached to their car, giving it a name, treating it as if it were a person?

Shortly after she opened the doors to Deb & Donna's Diner Saturday morning, Debbie Aynes was gunned down by her longtime boyfriend who then turned the gun on himself at the restaurant just off Highway 36 east of Pendleton.

The article goes on to say that "He's a wild man. He was just off the wall -- kind of an out-of-control guy." No one was surprised that he'd had guns, though. In Indiana that a given

Just like the man in Georgia the other day, we don't know if this Indiana fellow was a restricted person already or not, or if he'd actually been a licensed concealed carry guy. When domestic violence escalates to murder and suicide such details are often lost. That's why the claim by John Lott that so few cases of licence revocation take place is bogus. No one is counting, and the pro-gun folks like that just fine.

And, by the way, if it wasn't clear, I blame the gun owners of Indiana for this, because of their general attitude towards guns and all the efforts they put forth to make them as accessible as possible. Second only to the bullying, misogynist murderer himself, I blame them.

Standing amid an array of foreign assault rifles and local shotguns at one of the Philippines' largest shopping malls, firearms aficionados celebrated the rise of the nation's new president.

Benigno Aquino, who took office on June 30, is an avid sports shooter and clips on YouTube show him using a semi-automatic pistol with great skill at a target shooting competition.

"The feeling is that he is one of us. He also inhales gunpowder," said Johnmuel Mendoza, head of PRO-Gun, the country's largest firearms-rights group, at the twice-yearly gun show in Manila's vast "Megamall".

Inhaling gunpowder? Could that explain some of the wild assertions we sometimes hear from the gun crowd? Is that even legal, inhaling gunpowder? (Before anybody starts attacking, I'm being facetious. I took that expression to mean he really, really loves guns.)

But what about the report we recently discussed, which I hope someone reported to Joe Huffman, about the crime going down during the six-months of restrictions? I wonder what the immediate future holds for the Philippines.

There are about 1.3 million licensed firearms in the Philippines, with 600,000 in the hands of private citizens and the rest held by the military, police and other law-enforcement agencies, according to police estimates.

However police said last year there were also about 1.1 million unlicensed firearms in the Philippines.

The combined tally means there is roughly one firearm in circulation for every 40 Filipinos.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Commenter TS demands I show my contentention the NRA is racist is true.

Okeydokey.

Now, most every organization likely has racist members; this point is frequently made by NRA quislings in an attempt to explain away the NRA's racism. And it's true that one can find racists in the armed services or various businesses or civic groups--but that doesn't mean that organization is racist. In order for a group or organization to be racist, it must be demonstrated that the leadership condones and/or advocates racist views. So, with this premise, let's look at the NRA.

1. Leadership condones racist views. I'm sure most readers are familiar with this article detailing the racism of NRA Board members Ted Nugent and Jeff Cooper. Here's a speech by Charlton Heston that got great reviews by David Duke and StormFront. There are many, many other examples; the bottomline is that these racist views weren't expressed by some blowhard rank-and-file NRA member--they were from the top of the NRA leadership.2. Freedom In Peril The NRA at first tried to deny they had anything to do with this bit of racist propaganda. Per this tract, it's pretty apparent the NRA doesn't like any minority---even lobsters.3. Gun Shows and White Supremacists. NRA-sponsored gun shows often have vendors selling Nazi paraphernalia, white supremacist books (The Turner Diaries, etc.) and materials, and various conspiract theory materials.4. NRA Association With White Supremacist Groups. The NRA has associated with known racist groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), the Minuteman Project and various other white supremacist groups.

A Calhoun man was hospitalized in police custody Friday after allegedly shooting his ex-girlfriend to death and wounding two teens before being shot by police.

The scene unfolded Thursday evening across the northern edges of Gordon County, 70 miles north of Atlanta, where 38-year-old Paul Buchannon led county sheriff’s deputies on a hunt that ended near Hill City.

The article goes on explain that he'd already "had prior domestic violence-related arrests." Does that mean that they may not have resulted in convictions and that he was not a disqualified person?

Either way, the gun availability in Georgia is the problem. Oftentimes, dangerous people like this are not disqualified by the "draconian" laws, and if they are they can easily arm up by asking a friend or relative for a gun.

The solution: much stricter laws concerning gun acquisition and gun ownership. It's a no brainer.

Men who believe in being prepared, the Robert Farago types and the Nurse Xavier types, should take note. I'm seriously worried about them and all the guys who spend so much time and energy on protecting themselves against attack from their fellow man that they neglect the ever present danger from the skies.

What's your opinion? Do you think many gun owners are simply paranoid? They can write volumes about why they need the gun, but invariably (almost invariably) they'll report they've never needed it.

The Examiner reported on the upcoming execution of a woman who arranged for the murder of her husband and step-son.

On Thursday, a September 23 execution date was scheduled for Theresa Wilson Lewis. In 2003, she pleaded guilty to masterminding the October 2002 murders of her husband and stepson in Pittsylvania County.

Reading the details of her crime, you can't help thinking this must be one of them hillbilly heroin kinda gals, one of them white trash folks right from the trailer park. The details are incredibly lurid, complete with pimping herself and her daughter to the killers as partial payment.

But, do we really want to continue executing people like this? Is the claim that addiction and mental instability played a mitigating role so absurd that it should be eliminated from the equation?

Someone who is capable of doing this crime, despite her pill addiction and dependency on men, or whatever else she had, perhaps should not be free. But putting these sick members of our society down with a lethal injection makes our entire society sicker.

The Big Picture published a wonderful graphic describing the participation of Glenn Beck in this unscrupulous gold scam. Lots of people have pitched gold at inflated prices, but old Glenn put his fear of government into it in a slick way.

Quoting a 1933 FDR Executive Order, Beck informed his listeners that the government can in fact take away all your gold EXCEPT ANTIQUE COINS.

A 1/4 oz. proof gold American Eagle has melt value of $285, competitors sell them for $318, Goldline charges $815. If you bought these as a hedge against inflation, you immediately lost 64%. The price of gold would have to soar to $3,200 for you to break even.

What's your opinion? Is Glenn Beck anything more than a carny hustler, really?